The latest order comes after US District Court Judge James Boasberg ordered last month that the pipeline be shut down while the Army Corps of Engineers prepare an environmental impact statement for a rule relaxation that allowed the pipeline to cross the Missouri river.
However, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the lower court did not have the "findings necessary" to temporarily shut down the pipeline.
“Appellants have failed to make a strong showing of likely success on their claims that the district court erred in directing the Corps to prepare an environmental impact statement,” the judges said Wednesday, the Hill reported.
The appeals court did not, however, reverse a prior ruling stating that the Army Corps of Engineers complete another environmental impacts assessment.
The Dakota Access Pipeline is used to move around 570,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota to an oil terminal in Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes have sued the US Army Corps of Engineers and the pipeline’s parent company Energy Transfer Partners for allowing the Dakota Access Pipeline to pass through their sacred land and threaten their water resources.